Sunday, February 28, 2016

Millington,
TN—At a Trump rally yesterday, Chris Christie climbed the steps of
the stage set up inside a hangar with Trump’s corporate airplane in plain
view. After about two minutes of praising the presidential
front-runner and poking fun at rival Rubio, an open mic caught Trump
telling Christie to “get in the plane and go home. It’s over there. Go home.”
It was a humiliating way of saying that the also-ran was nothing more
than an opening act. As someone on Twitter opined, “…the political
equivalent of leaving the money on the nightstand.”

A Trump spokesperson did
not respond to requests for an explanation.
Hours later, however, Trump Social Media Director and Senior Adviser Dan
Scavino tweeted:

With the most popular Republican Presidential candidate (and possibly the top two) in open existential warfare with the GOP leadership, it's clear that the party, as we know it, will not survive into 2017. A leadership change is being forced by deeply unhappy conservative voters, but the old guard leaders, represented by Senators McConnell and Graham and House Speaker Ryan (and Boehner before him) are not going quietly into the night.

In fact, recent actions by the party indicate an unthinkable level of willingness to self-destruct, even to purposely lose the election rather than allow a popular outsider like Donald Trump to win the nomination and the general election. According to Politico, GOP leadership is taking measures to set up a possible independent run at the last minute in order to split the vote and prevent their own candidate from winning the general.

Although shockingly deceitful and destructive, such a move actually makes sense. The current party leadership might survive another loss to Democrats with whom they share more in common than they do with their increasingly alienated constituency. But they might not survive a huge victory by a free candidate, like Trump, "loaded for bear" against them.

Another strategy reported by the New York Times is for the GOP leadership to force a brokered convention and nominate a candidate friendlier than Trump: Marco Rubio or John Kasich - but NOT Ted Cruz. BlurBrain commented about this as follows (emphasis mine):

Why not just run Romney or McCain again?

Once again the Party elites are bound and determined to find some way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by dumping some lackluster nominee on the unwilling Republican voters in the mistaken belief that only some Johnny Milquetoast RINO can appeal to the wider segment of society.

Dude, we tried that, TWICE and it failed...

How about for a change they just let the people decide who they want, for better or worse and then get the hell out of the way?

This election isn’t going to be about ‘likes and wants’ as much as who you hate and fear the most. And right now it seems the GOPe is siding with the Democrats.

UPDATE: Welcome readers of Adrienne's Corner. We are honored that she linked to this post.

Sanders was in the air when the
race in South Carolina was called by all the networks for Clinton, flying from
one campaign stop in Texas to another in Minnesota.

“In politics, on a given night,
sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Tonight we lost,” Sanders told reporters
after getting off his chartered jet in Rochester, MN where he was staging an
evening rally. “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her very strong victory.
Tuesday over 800 delegates are at stake, and we intend to win many, many of
them.”

Delirium must be so freeing.

Obama voters showed up in force for Hillary Clinton #SCPrimary. Bernie voters? not so much. new lows among first-time and <30 voters.

Nope. I’m not talking about
the spokesman for the sandwich joint who got arrested on child pornography
charges, but the guy that came under a blitzkrieg of fire at the last GOP
debate for being a purveyor of the bargain to be had on a shady deal—“the Manhattan street corner
watch salesman.”

Donald Trump is proud of his “brand” but even the richest of
brands are robbed by poor character.

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz tag teamed The Donald and never
relented. In debates past, Trump has
successfully absorbed the mockery from his rivals on stage, but Thursday’s
debate was a different animal altogether.
It started earlier in the day with failed 2012 presidential candidate
Mitt Romney’s incendiary charge of a possible “bombshell” in Trump’s tax returns.

That opened the door to Rubio reminding debate viewers of Trump’s
hiring of undocumented Polish workers to build his signature skyscraper in New
York City, his fake Trump University and his clothing line and ties made in
Mexico.

The con man is a dark triad of psychopathy, Machiavellianism and
narcissism. (Ever notice how Trump
always refers to himself in the third person?)

Con artists surround
us: Bernie Madoff. Nigerian princes. Psychics. But we never think we’ll fall prey
to their wiles. We damn sure can spot a gimmick a mile away. Right?

Beware the Ides of
March. There’s a little trick from the
con artists’ handbook—Dale Carnegie’s How
to Win Friends and Influence People—called the Mark Anthony Gambit. The premise comes from Shakespeare in which
Mark Anthony begins a funeral oration for Julius Caesar, “I come to bury
Caesar, not to praise him.” Anthony’s
rhetoric exudes the art of persuasion and an artifice used to veil intent.

I must admit that
Thursday night’s debate from Houston was one helluva barn burner. Normally, as I dutifully watch these things,
I find myself nodding off. Not so this
time. With Jeb out of the picture the
war of words between Rubio, Trump and Cruz was brutal.

I’m still trying to
decide who will get my vote. I have a
few days left before the window on early voting closes and I want to beat the
rush because I’m a billionaire recluse and don’t like being among the great
unwashed.

Marco Robot transformed
himself into Master Blaster from Mad Max
Beyond Thunderdome. It’s fair to say
that Trump’s heavy application of orange spray tan made him remarkably
thin-skinned for this debate..

For the last 7 months
Trump has repeated the same phrases ad nauseum.
He touts what he will do when he is president but fails to give
details. The only thing I’ve noticed he
changes from stump speech to stump speech is the placard on the front of the
podium at which he speaks indicating the city in which the speech is being
held.

Up to now, the
debates have been an exercise in futility for Cruz and Rubio, but on this night
their combination one-two punch found its mark.
The chink in Donald’s armor was revealed.

Wolf: How can you be neutral on Israel/Palestine?
Trump: I was in a parade with Israelis.#GOPDebate

These actual accusations can be found in this bewildering Vox piece that the real Jessica Valenti re-tweeted and totally agreed with, expressing no shame whatsoever. First three Plenty Valenti episodes here, here and here.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

The 88th Academy
Awards ceremony will be this Sunday, February 28, 2016. All the voting has been completed and the
results have been hermetically sealed and kept in a No. 2 mayonnaise jar on
Funk and Wagnall’s back porch since noon today.
No one but me the great seer, soothsayer and sage “Curmudgeon The
Resplendent” knows the contents. Using
my borderline psychic powers I alone have divined the answer to who will be presented with the Oscar for Best Actress In A Leading Role For
Pathological Liar.

Actually, I’m not all
that resplendent. Everybody in America
knows the wretched fossil who held up a presidential debate because she took so
long to bite off a log and took to barking like a dog at a political stump
speech has a history of deflections, deceptions and untruths lies. Even her staunchest supporters are wetting
their beds over her “credibility deficit” due, in large part, to the
interview with Scott Pelley during which he asked, “You talk about leveling
with the American people. Have you
always told the truth? Her answer was, “I’ve
always tried to. Always. Always.”

When Pelley pointed
out that she had given herself “wiggle room” in her response she bristled
saying, “Well, no, I’ve always tried…”

Pelley pressed her, “I mean, Jimmy Carter said, ‘I will never lie
to you.'” Visibly shaken by the hardline insinuation, Clinton said,
“Well, but, you know, you’re asking me to say ‘Have I ever?’ I don’t
believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I
ever will. I’m gonna do the best I can to level with the American
people.”

Now that we have
Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina under our belts, the focus of the
punditry class and the #FeelTheBern lemmings are perplexed over the assignment
of delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

The ragtag but
committed Bernie bloc has “revolted” against super delegates. Unlike Republican
delegates who are bound to support the winner of a given state’s popular vote, unelected
Democrat super delegates are free to support any candidate at the convention.

One particularly
nasty George Soros backed PAC has petitioned the DNC commanding that super
delegates “must stand with voters and honor the outcomes of primaries and
caucuses held across the country. The Party’s
base simply will not tolerate any anti-democratic efforts by super delegates to
thwart the will of the people.”

“The Clintons can get
a delegate lead quicker than we can, and they have a way to gut out the
delegate fight,” said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Sanders. “We have to turn
victories in state after state into big momentum that can change the numbers.”

The
Barking Chihuahua already has a huge lead over the doddering socialist fool
in support from super delegates.

Ol’ Bernie believes
his campaign will bring about “one of the great political upsets in American history.”

Better wake up Bernie.
Your supporters only thought they saw their hands dropping their ballots
into the box.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Not being a feminazi
myself I took little offense at Republican presidential candidate John Kasich
saying on the campaign trail today, “How did I get elected? I didn’t have
anybody for me. We just got an army of people who—and many women left their
kitchens to go out door to door and put yard signs up for me all the way back
when things were different. Now you call home and everybody’s out working, but
at that time…it was an army of the women that really helped me get elected to
the state Senate.”

One woman at the town
hall meeting chided the mailman’s
son,
“Your comment about women came out of the kitchen to support you…I’ll come to
support you, but I won’t be coming out of the kitchen.”

Good grief! All these SJW’s getting their feelings hurt—Whiskey
Tango Foxtrot!

“John Kasich’s
campaigns have always been homegrown affairs,” said Schrimpf. “They’ve
literally been run out of his friends’ kitchens, and many of his early campaign
teams were made up of stay-at-home moms who believed deeply in the changes he
wanted to bring to them and their families. That’s real grassroots campaigning
and he’s proud of that authentic support. To try and twist his comments into
anything else is just desperate politics.”

Kasich is not a
misogynist; he’s just stuck in a time “way back when things were different” like maybe
The Flintstones.

Full-blown Social Justice War has been brewing at Twitter-Incorporated for some time. It heated up considerably a few weeks ago when they hired controversial feminist Anita Sarkeesian to head up their freshly-minted, Orwellian-named "Trust and Safety Council." It became rapidly clear that this was no mere token effort as Twitter immediately followed up this action by banning well-known conservative voices, and partially disabling the accounts of others in the name of "safety."

One of the first to fall, at least temporarily, was British anti-feminist Milo Yiannopoulos. Friday, conservative blogger and noted feminism critic, Robert Stacy McCain also found his account disabled, prompting supporters to mount a #FreeStacy campaign. Apparently, though, Twitter has taken no action to disable certain liberal hate sites, like one intriguingly named @KillDonaldTrump.

But, it may already be too late to save Twitter from their latest foolishness. They seem to have dug in, and conservatives are now asking if the monopoly of left-leaning social media has become too repulsive and anti-freedom to be tolerated any longer.

The Republican front-runner,
Donald Trump, appears in scenes from the HBO series Game Of Thrones in a brilliantly edited video mashup. Trump, wielding a Valyrian steel sword, says
he will build a wall to restore “control”, complains about the Pope and
promises to bring back “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.”

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Shaggy and Scooby are
aghast at the enormity of Granny Clinton’s bottom

As I was wading
through photographs today I happened upon a hilarious one showing someone
dressed in a Scooby Doo costume entering the employees’ entrance at Harrah’s
Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas before the caucuses opened this past Saturday.

I don’t know whether
this was part of the schtick at the casino or some evil plot cooked up to mock
Hillary’s barking like a dog at a rally in Reno earlier in the week. In any event I appropriated it to use in this
Photoshop™.

I worked it into a
photograph of Granny speaking at a campaign rally at Texas Southern University
in Houston just a few hours after defeating doddering milksop Bernie Sanders in
the Nevada caucuses.

As you can see The
Ice Cube In Heels is now using teleprompters and wearing glasses on the
campaign trail and…as always, her ass is M-A-S-S-I-V-E.

Notes appear on a
teleprompter after Democratic presidential candidate, former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton spoke at a campaign rally at Texas Southern University on
February 20, 2016 in Houston, Texas.

Jeb Bush suffered through a series of humiliations that made
up his campaign for president. He often
reminded me of Wile E. Coyote devising elaborate contraptions with materials
purchased through the Acme Corporation which always backfired.

The Bush Team tried every trick they could think of rather than
bend to the political winds. His mother, former first lady Barbara Bush,
implored voters to side with her son. George W. Bush joined him in South Carolina to
battle his brother’s nemesis.

Voters deemed Jeb too old-school for a party surging toward a new
identity.

“The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have
spoken and I really respect their decision,” said Bush, who grew emotional as
he announced he would end his run for the White House.

No, really. This issue of Popular Science actually came in the mail today. They really interviewed Barack on the future of science and technology. And he told them. Because he had a real technical job once. Working in a Baskin Robbins in Honolulu. And, uh, physics is a big part of golf.

Friday, February 19, 2016

During Donald Trump’s
convocation speech at Liberty University in January, he read notes written out
for him by Tony Perkins who is the president of the Family Research Center.

Trying to woo
evangelicals, Trump declared that Christianity is under siege and quoted a
Bible verse written in the aforementioned notes. The problem was it read 2 Corinthians 3:17.

"We're going to protect Christianity. I can
say that. I don't have to be politically correct...Two Corinthians, 3:17, that's
the whole ballgame...is that the one you like?"Trump asked, drawing laughter from the crowd of students who
knew Trump was attempting to refer to "Second Corinthians." He was still able to draw applause by reading
the verse, “Where the Lord is, there is liberty.” That specific verse is prominently displayed
throughout Liberty’s campus.Of course, the pundit class had a field day with Trump’s
“stumble”.

His boastful claims
that he will build a wall and have Mexico pay for it or the more incendiary
comment wherein Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown” of Muslims
entering the United States prompted Pope Francis to say the following, “A
person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of
building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel. As far as what you
said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get
involved in that. I say only that this is man is not Christian if he has said
things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him
the benefit of the doubt.”

Immediately after the
pope's comments were made public Trump responded, "For a religious leader
to question a person's faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and
as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and
weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader,
especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's
religion or faith."

He went further,
saying, "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone
knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have
only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this
would not have happened."

The businessman said
that Francis had "only heard one side of the story" and hadn't seen
the crime, drug trafficking, and negative economic impacts on the US. He also
slammed the Mexican government, saying they are "using the Pope as a pawn
and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so."

Mollie Hemingway,
opining at The
Federalist believes that the Vicar of Christ’s “straw man” approach
didn’t help to convey his message.

“There is absolutely
no question that Christians are called to love our neighbors as ourselves. How
we manifest that love when it comes to others is actually open to some debate.
Consider how you manage your own home. If you’re Christian, you should believe
in caring for those who are impoverished. Very few would argue, though, that
this means you must open your home to everyone who seeks shelter. Prudence is
also a virtue that helps guide the Christian. This is complicated even more
when you deal with the reality that the United States might be inhabited mostly
by Christians but does not set policy according to the New Testament.”

“There is an entire
book of the Old Testament about a godly man who is called to Jerusalem to build
a wall around it. There are walls around portions of various cities, including the
Vatican and Jerusalem. There are walls around our dwelling places. And there
are even metaphorical walls that enable us to have healthy relationships. So no
one thinks “only” about walls and walls aren’t even necessarily bad, Biblically
speaking.”

Pelley came back
at her with, “Some people are gonna call that wiggle room that you just gave
yourself.” “Well, no. I’ve always tried—,”
she said.

Pelley pressed
her, “I mean, Jimmy Carter said, ‘I will never lie to you.'” Visibly shaken by the hardline insinuation,
Clinton said, “Well, but, you know, you’re asking me to say ‘Have I ever?’ I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever have. I don’t believe I ever will. I’m gonna do the best I can to level with the
American people.”

Vice President Biden
says he could “live with” Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders but offered
critiques of both candidates running for the 2016 Democratic presidential
nomination.

“I can live with
either one of them,” Biden said in a jointinterview with
The Washington Post and Politico published tpday. “I can support
either one of them; I just have a different sense of how we should be talking
about the issues that face us, to enhance the possibility that we keep the
White House.”

The Democrats are in a deep, deep mountain of manure. I hope the Republicans
don’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
America cannot endure anymore desolation, transformation, lawlessness
and corruption on either side of the aisle.

Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia's courtroom chair is draped in black wool crepe to
mark his death as part of a tradition that dates to the 19th century.

What makes Washington’s little acts of thoughtlessness so
telling is that they attract more attention than doing the right thing would.

The “constitutional law professor” can’t be bothered to
attend the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s former head
of the Auto Task Force, Steven Rattner tweeted, “If we want to reduce partisanship, we can start by
honoring great public servants who we disagree with.”

Even more astounding to me is lefty fan boy, Chris Hayes tweeted. “Some amazing advice my mom gave me once: ‘If you’re wondering whether you should go to
the funeral, you should go to the funeral.”

This isn’t the first
time Obama hasn’t shown leadership or respect for the office he holds.

During the 2013 memorial
service of Nelson Mandela, the president, acting like a child with no apparent
sense of upbringing or decorum, was caught
taking selfies with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Denmark’s
Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt.So outrageous was his behavior that First Lady Michelle Obama switched
seats with her husband to bring an end to the embarrassing sophomoric behavior.

The most shameful
rebuff from this president came with the passing of former British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher in 2013 that enraged our staunchest allies the
British people.

Bear in mind that
when the Democrats’ “messiah” took office his awkward naiveté was unbelievably
epic. There was the removal of the
Churchill bust from the Oval Office, the iPod loaded with his speeches that he
presented as a gift to the queen and the boxed set of 25 DVDs of American movie
classics he gave Prime Minister Gordon Brown after he had graciously gifted him
with a pen set crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British naval ship
HMS President (the sister ship of HMS Resolute that provided the wood for the
Oval Office’s desk) that had served on anti-slavery missions off the coast of
Africa.

And let’s not forget
the equally insulting gift his wife gave Brown’s two little sons. The “last-minute” gifts of toy models of
Marine One scooped up from the White House gift shop was an outrage.

President
Obama is rudeness personified.

“As the world bids
farewell to Lady Margaret Thatcher today, it’s hard not to notice that
America’s official presence at the state funeral for England’s most significant
prime minister since Winston Churchill will be underwhelming,” wroteThe Post. “Instead of sending a high-ranking
member of his own administration to lead the official delegation, President
Obama has dispatched two former Republican secretaries of state, George Shultz
and Jim Baker. Nothing against these men, but we can forgive the British for regarding
Obama’s choice as yet another snub.”

Her ideological rival
on the bench, Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted of her treasured friend, “I disagreed with most of what he said, but
I loved the way he said it. A great legal mind has been lost, but his influence
on the Supreme Court and the legal profession as a whole will remain for years
to come.”

No president has skipped the funeral of a sitting Supreme
Court Justice in 60 years. Obama is
making history by his unprecedented and disgraceful disrespect.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest would not offer information on
what the president will be doing while the nation mourns the loss of this great
man, but rest assured the District of Columbia’s weather forecast of 63 degrees
and sunny skies tells me all I need to know about POTUS’s plans for the
weekend. You effing slob.

Don't give me that "not all liberals would dance on Scalia's grave" nonsense. Yes, they would. They despised Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, just like they hated Reagan and Thatcher. All because he was a consistent voice for constitutional rule of law which keeps us from total dictatorship and mob rule. And they'd dance on that grave 30 seconds after they spent an hour explaining to you why it's disgraceful and dangerous to dance on bin Laden's grave. You know, if he had one. Because that's the kind of people they are, as proven by this tweet here.

Dan Riehl of Breitbart.com shared the substance of a recent interview
with Pat Caddell in which he said,
“Cruz’s or Trump’s election would be a shock to the system.”

Caddell continued, “We
are seeing the transformation of the paradigm of politics. All the old rules
are failing. All the old assumptions don’t work. And we have a new set of
assumptions evolving. And we have a public that no longer seems to want to eat
the dog food that the establishment has dished out and are, in fact, going for
choices that are outside the boxes of our ordinary politics.”

Nine months ago the
conventional wisdom was that Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton would win election
easily. “The country,” Caddell noted, “is saying we want something
different. And we want to take back…most
importantly, reclaiming our sovereignty.
People seem to have gone from being passive observers to active
participants.” Caddell believes that
many people who usually don’t vote will come out this election cycle.

Byron York, Chief
Political Correspondent for The
Washington Examiner, attended the rally in
North Charleston, SC Monday night. Former
president George W. Bush and wife Laura were the star attraction in an effort
to boost Jeb’s floundering campaign.

York interviewed 41
attendees. I gathered from his report
that most were there to see the former president who is beloved by South
Carolinians. As he interviewed them it
became obvious that their love for W doesn’t transfer to his brother Jeb.

When York asked
whether, looking back, going to war in Iraq was a mistake, seventeen said yes,
it was a mistake. Seventeen said no, it was not a mistake. And seven said some
variation of, "It's complicated."

Many of those who
said the war was a mistake took care to add that they thought W did the best he
could with the information he had at the time. Many of those who said it wasn't
a mistake said they don't necessarily approve of it today, as they look back,
but they don't want to apply 20/20 hindsight and criticize a decision made 15
years ago. Some blamed today's mess on Barack Obama. In other words, no matter
what they said, they were inclined to cut W some slack.

Some of the
"It's complicated" people seemed truly torn by the question. In the
end, he came away with the impression that most of them didn't really disagree
with each other very much. Some of them leaned a little more to the
"mistake" side than others, but none of them were in a mood to blame
the former president sitting on the stage.

South Carolina
Republicans place a lot of value on loyalty. Many have supported the Bush
family over the years, and they'll always feel warmly toward any candidate
named Bush. But their feelings about Jeb just don't rise to the level of their
devotion to W. It's hard to imagine that changing in the few days left before
the South Carolina primary.

During last Saturday’s
GOP debate, Marco Rubio responded to Donald Trump’s statement that “the World
Trade Center came down during your brother’s reign. Don’t forget that.” During the heated exchange between Bush and
Trump, Marco Rubio said, “I just want to say, at least on behalf of me and my
family, I thank God all the time it was George W. Bush in the White House on
9/11 and not Al Gore. And you can—I think you can look back in hindsight and
say a couple of things, but he kept us safe. And not only did he keep us safe,
but no matter what you want to say about weapons of mass destruction, Saddam
Hussein was in violation of UN resolutions, in open violation, and the world
wouldn’t do anything about it, and George W. Bush enforced what the
international community refused to do. And again, he kept us safe, and I am
forever grateful to what he did for this country.”

I believe, just as
many others do, that Rubio’s response was not intended to answer Trump’s charge
but was a play for the Jeb vote.

Jeb’s polling numbers
are in single digits. He’s shown no
inclination to drop out of the race and may be stubborn or prideful enough to
stick it out until after Super Tuesday when Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas,
Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas,
Vermont and Virginia all go to the polls.

Former president Bush’s
appearance in South Carolina seemed more like Jebland giving itself permission
to say to his supporters “we did all we could”.